As a young freedom fighter, Nelson Mandela stepped out of a farmhouse hideout in South Africa, took 20 strides and dug a hole on the sprawling land.
He leaned over, put in a semiautomatic pistol and 200 rounds of ammunition, and carefully put a khaki uniform over them. After covering them with heaps of soil, he sauntered back into his rural hideout in northern Johannesburg -- hoping to retrieve them soon.He never got a chance to fire a shot with the Makarov pistol. A few weeks after he buried it at the farm in Rivonia, he was hurled into prison for the next 27 years.
That was in 1962, and the whereabouts of the gun -- now estimated at $3 million -- remain a mystery, said Nicholas Wolpe, the chief executive of Liliesleaf Farm, the former hideout now converted into a museum.A scramble to find the gun has sparked a frenzy among collectors, historians and Mandela fans.
'It's interesting how we came to find out about the gun," Wolpe said. "Mandela visited Liliesleaf in 2003, and as we were walking around, he turned to me and asked, 'By the way, did you find my gun?"Wolpe said he was stunned.
"I turned to him and said, 'Gun, what gun?' "
Mandela then asked him to pinpoint where the main kitchen once stood.
"He then made a 45-degree angle and said, '20 paces from here, I buried a gun,' " Wolpe said.During the visit, the two tried to retrace his steps using the paces as a guide, but the farm had undergone some changes, making it hard to determine the original location of the kitchen with certainty.

Police in Savannah say a man accused of lying to authorities after accidentally shooting himself has been charged with providing false information to police, obstruction and other offenses.

Savannah-Chatham Metropolitan Police spokesman Julian Miller says 21-year-old Deaussey Ladarius Mungin accidentally shot himself in the finger Monday and told police he was wounded when someone fired at him from a passing vehicle.

Miller says police didn't find the crime scene, thought the wound was self-inflicted and asked him to submit to a gun residue test. Mungin instead checked himself out of the hospital and ran.

Miller says ammunition fell out of his sweater and police also found marijuana when he was arrested.

You see, the negligence is not what does it. It's the lying to the police.

Friday, December 6, 2013

A man apparently shot and wounded his ex-wife inside her Pearland home Wednesday before fatally shooting himself, authorities said.

Brazoria County Sheriff's deputies responding to a shooting found the two about 3 p.m. at her home in the 2400 block of Woodbury.

The man was dead and his estranged wife was taken by Life Flight helicopter to Memorial Hermann Hospital. Her condition wasn't known Wednesday night but deputies said she was still alive.

Detectives said the case remains under investigation and they have not officially confirmed a possible motive. But, they believe it was an attempted murder-suicide. There were no signs of forced entry into the woman's home and the estranged couple was found together with a weapon.

Nice Christmas decorations. I imagine he did them, but then when it all got to be too much for him, he took out the gun.

Of course the meticulous record-keeping by the state of Texas will ensure that if the dead gun owner had had a concealed carry license that fact is recorded. They wouldn't want any anomalies or omissions in their statistics.

Florida resident Justin Holt was tragically shot and killed on Monday while he and his girlfriend were playing with their friend’s handgun. Holt and his friends were dry-firing the gun at each other for fun earlier in the day. After the friends were done playing with the gun, the gun’s owner loaded the weapon and set it on a table.

Holt’s girlfriend Erin Steele never saw the gun’s owner reload the weapon. About two hours later, she picked the gun up, pointed it at Holt, and fired. Instead of the hearing the quiet click of a dry-fire, she saw her boyfriend fall to the ground in pain. She’d shot him in the chest.

Friends called 911 immediately for help.

“Please help me, ma'am!” a man is heard saying on the 911 call. “There was an accident; there was a very bad accident. Someone picked up my firearm by mistake, ma'am, and someone got shot. Please, please come.”

Boca Raton police interviewed all witnesses of the shooting. Everyone present gave the same account of events and confirmed that the shooting was absolutely an accident. Holt’s family spoke to the media and said they want no charges pressed against Steele.

“We have a lot of compassion for her because she's got to live with that, no matter what she does, for the rest of her life,” Holt's grandfather, 82-year-old Michael DiFiore, told the Sun Sentinel.

Holt’s mother says the two were very much in love, and that a tragedy like this is punishment enough for Steele.

As heartbreaking as Holt’s death is, he is far from the first person to be killed in an accidental shooting even this year. According toPolicy Mic, accidental shootings killed 851 Americans in 2012.

This is the other kind of accidental shooting. The most popular method for the bumbling idiots who do these things is the old "forgetting there's a round in the chamber." But a close second is this one in which the reckless gun owner purposely shoots at someone thinking the gun is unloaded.

I find the appeals of the family members quite persuasive. I wouldn't want this woman to serve time in jail. But, I certainly wouldn't want her owning and using guns in the future, would you?

The Coshocton County Sheriff's Office says a hunter died after he apparently shot himself accidentally.
Authorities identified the man Tuesday as 63-year-old Gary Pace. Media reports said he was from Warren in Jefferson Township. The sheriff's office said in a news release that deputies and the Ohio Department of Natural Resources responded to the shooting about 10:30 a.m. Monday and found the hunter in his tree stand on his property. He was pronounced dead at the scene from an accidental gunshot wound. Sheriff Tim Rogers told the Coshocton Tribune that Pace was alone and in the tree stand, about 20 feet off the ground. He told the newspaper that Pace had a single gunshot wound to the head from a handgun. He was discovered by a friend.

Local news reportsA New York man was charged Tuesday with reckless conduct as a result of a shooting Nov. 23 involving a handgun police say he accidentally fired into his hand, with the same bullet injuring an adult female.Justin Morales, 29, of 18 Vermont View Drive, Apt. 12, Watervliet, N.Y., was arrested by Nashua police and charged with reckless conduct, a class B felony.

Morales told police at the time he was breaking down the handgun while it was still loaded. Police said the weapon was fired and a bullet went through his hand and then into the upper leg of the woman, who police said lived at the apartment.

A class B felony is punishable by up to seven years in prison. Morales was released on $30,000 personal recognizance bail pending an upcoming arraignment in the 9th Circuit Court, Nashua District Division.

Thursday, December 5, 2013

A federal judge has dismissed a gun industry group lawsuit challenging a wide-ranging firearms law passed by Connecticut in response to the shooting deaths of 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown.

U.S. District Judge Janet C. Hall in New Haven ruled Monday that the Newtown-based National Shooting Sports Foundation Inc. does not have legal standing to challenge how the legislature and governor approved the law in April.

The foundation sued Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, legislative leaders and other officials in July, claiming the ‘‘emergency’’ legislation was approved illegally without proper public input, without time for adequate review by lawmakers and without an explanation of why the usual legislative process needed to be bypassed.

The law, which expanded a ban on assault weapons and prohibits large-capacity ammunition magazines, still faces other legal challenges by gun rights advocates.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation is considering whether to appeal Hall’s ruling to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan, said Lawrence Keane, the foundation’s senior vice president and general counsel.

‘‘We’re obviously disappointed,’’ Keane said Tuesday. ‘‘The legislature voted on a 139-page bill that they never read, and we were denied our First Amendment right to advocate for changes in the actual bill that was voted on.’’

This photo provided by the Hoover Police Department shows Adrian Briskey, 28, charged with killing a fellow Alabama fan after the end of last weekend's Iron Bowl football game. Briskey was angry that the victim and others didn't seem upset over the Crimson Tide's loss to archrival Auburn, said the sister of the slain woman. (AP Photo/Hoover Police Department, Capt. James Coker)AP

A woman charged with killing a fellow Alabama fan after the end of last weekend's Iron Bowl football game was angry that the victim and others didn't seem upset over the Crimson Tide's loss to archrival Auburn, said the sister of the slain woman.

Adrian Laroze Briskey, 28, was charged Monday with murder in the killing of 36-year-old Michelle Shepherd.

Hoover police Capt. Jim Coker said both Birmingham women were Alabama fans and at the same party for the annual game between intrastate rivals. With no time left on the clock, Auburn returned a missed Crimson Tide field goal more than 100 yards for a 34-28 victory, dashing any hopes of Alabama playing for a third straight national championship.

Nekesa Shepherd said Briskey flew into a rage when she saw the sisters and others joking that the Crimson Tide's loss wasn't as bad as if the NBA's Miami Heat had lost a game.

"She said we weren't real Alabama fans because it didn't bother us that they lost. And then she started shooting," Shepherd told The Associated Press.

Court records were not available to show whether Briskey has a lawyer. She has only had a couple of speeding tickets in the past, records show.

Police say a grandfather killed his two grandchildren and his daughter’s boyfriend in a shooting Tuesday afternoon in rural Crawford County. Crawford County Sheriff Ron Brown said Tim Adams, believed to be in his early 50s, then killed himself after shooting his 4-month-old grandson, 4-year-old granddaughter and the boyfriend of his daughter. Brown said when Adams’ daughter, boyfriend and two children drove up to the home Tuesday afternoon, Adams came outside carrying a gun. He fired a shot, wounding the woman’s boyfriend, and then shot the 4-month-old boy, who was in a carseat in the back seat of the vehicle, Brown said. The woman grabbed the wounded infant and exited the car, running into the home, Brown said. Adams pursued her, firing shots as she fled with the infant, before he returned to the front yard and shot his 4-year-old granddaughter, Brown said.
“(The boyfriend) was in the front passenger seat of the vehicle when he was shot,” Brown said. “He exited the vehicle after being shot and died in the yard. It looked like he tried to run into the house as well.”
Adams’ daughter was not wounded, Brown said.

I'll bet he had a concealed carry permit too, but after all this, who's checking? Especially in cases where the permit holder ends up dead, no one cares any more if he had a CCW permit or a library card or anything else. What's the difference?

I strongly repudiate the points Ted Round makes in his Nov. 25 letter “JFK and NRA.” The National Rifle Association doesn’t promote gun violence or sell guns? News to me.

Gun makers pay the NRA handsomely to make the political landscape favorable to selling guns. By blocking every sensible gun law, the NRA ensures unrestrained gun sales with nary a background check and is directly culpable for gun proliferation and violence in America.

As for JFK being a member, many famous people are. So what? How does that sanitize the image of the NRA? Besides, the NRA was a responsible group in JFK’s time and advocated a sensible balance between gun ownership and restrictions. Today, as a vociferous minority, it is the willful scourge of America.

It’s interesting that the gun apologists are so paranoid that they worry with even the smallest gun law we will descend a slippery slope to confiscation, but the same history Mr. Round extols shows just the opposite trend — a precipitous fall from the sensible regulations of Kennedy’s day to the deplorable situation we have today.

Perhaps someday, Mr. Round will set aside his solipsistic delusions and see that America would be a much safer place without so many guns. More guns equal more shootings. Fewer guns equal fewer shootings. Simple math cannot be overturned by misguided NRA rhetoric.

AL DUERIG
Greensburg

I like this guy. He uses some of the same ideas as I do. He says the NRA is "directly culpable for gun proliferation and violence in America," that it was "a responsible group in JFK’s time," and that it represents "a vociferous minority."

"When we forward this to the prosecutor, it will be up to him to determine what charges come out of this," the sheriff said, adding he anticipates there will be charges.

The 11-year-old victim has been identified as Tyler Dunn of Marlette, according to Marlette Interim Superintendent Alan Broughton.

Dunn was at a sleepover Saturday, Nov. 23 when the fatal shooting happened, Biniecki said.

No adults were home at the time, he said.

The initial investigation showed that two boys were at the residence alone, and one boy was showing the other boy a lever-action .30-30 older model rifle when the shooting happened.

"They do not have an updated safety feature," the sheriff said about the rifle. "It's a ratchet lever-action, when the hammer comes back, it's cocked and ready to fire.

Investigators don't believe the gun was locked up at the home and that the shooting was accidental, the sheriff said.

"It's tragic. Two lives were affected. One boy won't be with us, and one will have to deal with this for the rest of his life."

After the shooting, Biniecki offered a few gun safety tips for residents:

"Everyone needs to remember that every gun is loaded," the sheriff said. "Even if it's unloaded, point it in a safe direction, and no one will ever be shot unless it's intentional."

Trigger locks and similar devices are available to disable firearms from firing, he said, advising gun owners to keep safety locks on guns or to keep them in a locked safe. Firearms should be locked and stored in a separate location from a locked ammo box, he said.

"You can't have the two together, and keeping them locked is key," he said.

"Some of it comes to us," he added, "we've got to take responsibility for our kids and help them do it right. I believe if parental supervision would've been there, maybe it wouldn't have happened."

You see, what they're going to do, probably, is charge the irresponsible idiot who left these kids alone with access to a gun. But I doubt very seriously if that's the very first gun offense committed by this guy. He probably could have been disarmed long ago BEFORE a kid got killed. Reckless gun owners who leave 11-year-olds alone with guns are the same guys who break other safety and common sense rules. One-strike-you're-out is what we need to cut down on these tragic incidents, and we need it before something this drastic happens.

Two people were injured on Sunday after an accidental shooting in Moses Lake. A man was cleaning his 9mm when he pulled the trigger shooting himself and his daughter-in-law. Neither of them have life threatening injuries.

The Grant County Sheriff’s Office reports that 69-year-old Terry Cafferty was cleaning several pistols at his dining room table while other family members were sitting nearby. Cafferty was disassembling his compact 9mm, but reportedly forgot to remove the loaded magazine. Without realizing he had chambered a bullet Cafferty pulled the trigger. The bullet struck him in the forearm before it hitting his daughter-in-law, Miriam Cafferty, in the chest while she was sitting in the living room.

“This unfortunate accident is regrettably a sobering reminder of the importance behind proper firearm handling and cleaning in a safe location.” said Sheriff Tom Jones. “We would like to extend our sincerest, warmest wishes to Miriam and Terry for a full recovery.”

The authorities love to remind people to be more careful when these things happen. What they should do is swiftly remove guns from people who demonstrate the incapacity to act safely with them. That would work much better to warn the rest of the gun owners to be more careful.

Patrick Milliner, the shooter, on the leftBoston dot comThe assailant in an apparent murder-suicide purchased a handgun hours before ambushing his ex-boyfriend in a shooting that followed a breakup, state police said Monday.

Autopsy results confirmed that Matthew Rairdon, 22, of Westbrook, died from gunshot wounds to the head and chest and that Patrick Milliner, 30, of South Portland, died from a single gunshot wound to the head, investigators said.

Milliner bought the gun Friday at Cabela's; the shootings took place early Saturday, just after midnight, in Rairdon’s apartment, said Stephen McCausland, spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety.

Milliner, who left a rambling post on Facebook, along with a note, was dressed in black and appeared to have ambushed Rairdon as he walked in the door following a late shift at Mercy Hospital, where he was an emergency room nurse, police said.

Just like crimes committed by concealed carry permit holders, no one is checking whether crimes are committed by people who bought guns with no waiting period. That is, unless some reporter stumbles on the information like in this case. The gun nuts don't want us to know these things. They might lead to sensible legislation that would inconvenience them a bit. Saving lives is not their concern.

For the first time in Iceland's modern history, police carried out a fatal shooting early Monday during an exchange of gunfire with a man reported to be firing at cars from his apartment window.

Two police officers were wounded in the shootout that followed a 5 a.m. emergency call from neighbors, Euronews quoted an Icelandic news agency as reporting. The 59-year-old victim from eastern Reykjavik, who wasn't immediately identified, was taken to an area hospital where he died of his wounds.

The British broadcaster referred to its May report on Iceland's crime rate, one of the lowest in the world despite widespread gun ownership. There are about 90,000 guns registered among Iceland's 315,000 people, making it 15th in the world in per capita gun ownership, GunPolicy.org reports.

The author-researcher of the BBC crime study, Andrew Clark of Boston's Suffolk University Law School, attributed the low incidence of violent crime in Iceland to the absence of class distinctions in a country where 97% identify themselves as middle class.

Clark also noted that, unlike in the United States, acquiring a gun involves a more rigorous system of checks, including a medical examination of the applicant and a written test.

Written test? That's how we could eliminate many of our gun owners right there.

Last year, Texas firearms dealer Cody Wilson posted online directions to make a gun called a “Liberator” on a 3-D printer. More than 100,000 copies of the gun were downloaded before the State Department told Wilson to remove the file.

The Republican-led House passed a bill today renewing a U.S. ban on plastic guns, just days before the 1988 law is set to lapse. The ban on weapons that can elude detectors at security checkpoints expires Dec. 9, as the Senate returns from a recess and is set to take up the measure. The National Rifle Association, the largest U.S. gun lobby, has been silent on the plastic-gun ban.

The House by voice vote passed the bill, sponsored by North Carolina RepublicanHoward Coble. The measure heads to the Senate, where Democratic lawmakers are considering revisions to deal with emerging technology.

Advocates for expanded gun laws say the House vote may be a signal that some support exists for stricter laws after the shooting almost a year ago in Newtown, Connecticut, that killed 20 elementary school students and six adults.

“Any time you see the House of Representatives moving forward on firearms legislation it’s a very good sign,” said Ladd Everitt, a spokesman for the Washington-based Coalition to Stop Gun Violence.

MediaiteAnother Super Bowl brings another round of “banned” ads that end up getting nearly as much free publicity online as they would have received for millions of dollars during the big game. An early entry this year comes from Daniel Defense, which would have had to shell outupwards of $8 millionto air this 60-second spot had Fox not rejected its pro-gun rights message.

Fox cited the NFL’s rule prohibiting the advertising of “firearms, ammunition or other weapons” during games in its rejection of the ad, but gun rights groups are pushing back, claiming that the ad does not violate the league’s rules.

According to Guns & Ammo magazine, the firearms portion of the NFL’s Prohibited Advertising Categories states:

“5. Firearms, ammunition or other weapons are prohibited; however, stores that sell firearms and ammunitions (e.g., outdoor stores and camping stores) will be permitted, provided they sell other products and the ads do not mention firearms, ammunition or other weapons.”

They argue that the ad complies with the rules for two reasons: Because “Daniel Defense has a brick-and-mortar store, where they sell products other than firearms such as apparel” and “The commercial itself does not mention firearms, ammunition or weaponry.”

Typical of lying gun-rights fanatics, they pretend the ad is about selling tents and backpacks.

New RepublicShannon Watts knew she was heading into a rough neighborhood when she became an activist in the battle over gun control. A former corporate executive and mother of five children, Watts launched a gun-control group, now called Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, not long after the Newtown shootings. As the new push to restrict guns grabbed attention over the ensuing year, Watts and other activists experienced the blowback up close, in sometimes frightening detail.

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

The campaign manager for Mark Herring, the declared winner in the Virginia Attorney General race, says they won the election because they ignored the conventional wisdom typically pushed by media pundits that supporting stronger gun laws is a political liability.

Media pundits often claim that it is electoral suicide for candidates to call for stronger gun laws, suggesting that National Rifle Association has the power to punish candidates who oppose any portion of its absolutist pro-gun agenda. After two Colorado state senators who backed stronger gun laws were unseated in a September recall election, the media hyped this narrative and suggested the Colorado recall served as a warning to politicians who would advocate for stricter gun laws. (MSNBC host Chuck Todd, for example, said the lesson of the recall elections was that "every Democrat south of the Mason-Dixon Line" should stay away from the gun issue.)

NRA-ILADoe Run made significant efforts to reduce lead emissions from the smelter, but in 2008 the federal Environmental Protection Agency issued new National Ambient Air Quality Standards for lead that were 10 times tighter than the previous standard. Given the new lead air quality standard, Doe Run made the decision to close the Herculaneum smelter.

Whatever the EPA's motivation when creating the new lead air quality standard, increasingly restrictive regulation of lead is likely to affect the production and ct of traditional ammunition. Just this month, California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law a bill that will ban lead ammunition for all hunting in California. The Center for Biological Diversity has tried multiple times to get similar regulations at the federal level by trying, and repeatedly failing, to get the EPA to regulate conventional ammunition under the Toxic Substances Control Act.

At this time, it's unclear if Doe Run or another company will open a new lead smelter in the United States that can meet the more stringent lead air quality standards by using more modern smelting methods. What is clear is that after the Herculaneum smelter closes its doors in December, entirely domestic manufacture of conventional ammunition, from raw ore to finished cartridge, will be impossible.Gun-rights fanatics and Obama haters like Allen West see this as a conspiracy against gun owners. Being completely self-absorbed, they see the EPA decision only as it affects them. They think it really has nothing to do with air pollution or the dangers of lead in the environment and only about "back door gun control." The fact that many industries use lead other than the ammo makers doesn't phase them. It's all about their rights, you see.

The voters, legislators and policy makers in each state are, for the most part, products of that state's education system. Where ignorance prevails, you can expect ignorant and backwards gun policies. Where enlightenment and advancement is more prevalent, you can expect the opposite.